Privately funded scientists made a virus related to smallpox from scratch, hoping their version might lead to a better smallpox vaccine. But critics question the need — and worry about repercussions.
As history tells it, young Edward Jenner heard a milkmaid say she'd had cowpox so couldn't get smallpox. And thus his idea for a vaccine was born. Now a researcher has fact-checked the tale.
The eradication of smallpox was arguably one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine. But people had crazy ideas about the vaccine when it was created in 1798. A new exhibit tells the story.